Newsletter
Ever since smartphones integrated a GPS sensor, Google Maps has become one of the most useful apps. The company is constantly updating the app with new features and changes in its interface to improve the overall experience. With all these changes, users might not know where some features have been relocated or maybe they would like to somehow learn a few tips and tricks about this app to make it even more useful. So here are the top 10 tips and tricks for Google Maps.
If you have saved your Home and Work addresses in Google Maps, Google may help you choose a better route based on average traffic conditions on certain hours of the day, you just need to go to “Start Driving” from the left menu before you leave the office and check if there’s a faster route available. You can visit “Your Timeline” on the left menu, where Google has stored all of your locations (you can disable this if it upsets you), and see all of the places you’ve visited, which might be useful in case you can’t remember where certain places were or specific routes you took to get somewhere. Google Maps has been optimized for offline use, so you can download certain areas that won’t require a connection by searching for a city or country, tapping the menu at the bottom and select download. Recently, Google added the functionality to search for restaurants, grocery stores and other places from within a specific route, you can even check for gas prices from the gas stations that are near your chosen route.
Google Maps now include a comprehensive list of public places with reviews, contact numbers and their websites, and it now includes a graph that shows the busiest times for specific places, so you can avoid going when it’s more crowded, just search for a place and navigate the menu to find it. You can become a Local Guide to make this even better, share suggestions, rate places and reviews, as well as editing or adding missing information and you might even get rewarded. If you’re on desktop, you can get typical traffic patterns so you can plan when to leave from a certain place in a near future, just click on the menu button, choose traffic, and on the bar at the bottom choose typical traffic instead of live traffic, so you can select the specific day of the week and the time when you plan to leave. Indoor mapping is available to help you find a certain store or bathrooms on a mall, airport or a sports arena, just zoom in to see the map for the venue. If you’re signed into the same account on desktop and mobile platforms, you can send directions from the desktop to your mobile, just find the place and you’ll find the button on the left. Finally, you can zoom in or out using just one hand, which is useful for large-screened smartphones, just double tap the screen and swipe up to zoom out or swipe down to zoom in.